Meet Neirton “Nay Nay” Oliveira, a freshman from Fortaleza, Brazil where he was born and raised until he came to McMinnville, Oregon as an exchange student in high school.

He has been swimming since he was eight years old and has always swam competitively.

He swims the short distance freestyle and butterfly. While he was at McMinnville High School, he was recruited by Linfield’s swim coach, Kyle Kimball.

Teammate Malia Riggs, ’19, said that “he can swim anything you put him in and he’s just a really likable guy and he gets along with everyone. He’s the kind of person that cheers for everyone.”

Riggs also said that he brings a lot of determination and smiles to the rest of the team.

As a child, Oliveira participated in most sports. He played basketball, soccer and volleyball and still loves playing volleyball.

He struggled with asthma and got into swimming and has loved swimming for as long as he can remember.

Something you might not know if you were just talking to Oliveira is that English is not his first language. He came to the United States knowing very little English.

He said learning English was really difficult. His first language is Portuguese and his second is English.

Oliverira can understand Spanish but is not as comfortable with it as English. He is undecided major wise but is interested in language and wants to become fluent in Spanish.

He has two sisters, one is older and the other younger, making him the middle child.

When asked about whether he missed Brazil, he said he misses the warmth of the weather because “it’s summer all-year round.” He also mentioned, he misses the food in Brazil.